I admit it: I am a car freak living in the middle of New York City. But a little background is appropriate here, because I am far from a gas guzzling, irresponsible citizen. You see, I developed this love way before there was an environmental or gas crisis; it started around the age of five. I can now blame it on my father, since he rewarded me with the present to end all presents: a miniature car racing kit!

There was no stopping me after that. I helped pick out the cars my dad would buy beginning when I was six. Yes I was a precocious kid, and on top of this service to my dad, I became able to name the model and year of just about every car on the road, which never ceased to amaze my less observant friends.

So it should come as no surprise that I would be fairly picky when it came to buying a car for myself. And since this was something I have been trying to do for the last year and a half, I am mindful of the environmental and economic implications of my choice. Even though I will not be using this car most of the time (it will be in Miami where I have a second home), I was determined to get something that was fun, maybe even a convertible.

I have been reading car magazines all my life so I am fairly conversant on most of the new models to hit the market. I was also lucky because I could test drive cars in two different locales, in both Manhattan and Miami.

It was a fun job to test drive these cars, and it taught me so much more than I ever would have thought. Interestingly enough, many of the cars that recently got glowing reviews from the car magazines seemed uninteresting to me when driven, or like so many things in this society now, so over the top that the pure driving pleasure I was looking for just wasn't there. I found many of the premium auto brands were trading on their reputation and were not delivering the kind of feel or performance I expected. One rainy day about two months ago, I went to the Audi dealer on the west side of Manhattan to drive a few of the new models. I had read about a particular new sports model that had gotten some fantastic reviews, and I was curious how it drove. Since another customer was test driving the car, I had to wait about 15 minutes for him to get back. I noticed a particular attitude among the customers of this very busy dealership in the middle of a supposed recession. Most of the customers were looking each other over as if they were all somehow special to be there; I almost felt like I was waiting in line to get into a hot nightclub. I thought this was somewhat strange, since I never anticipated this kind of vibe in a car dealer. What was so special about this car buying experience to warrant this?

It hit me like a bolt of lightning: the desire to belong "to the right club," in this case the Audi club, was so important to people that they would not only sacrifice a lot of money for membership, but they became oblivious to the underlying worth of what they were getting. This same need to belong is so prevalent today, and it applies to so many things other than a certain auto brand. True quality and substance is in short supply, since the surface quality of many things has assumed enormous weight.

Has the need to belong caused you to make decisions you've regretted?
Click Here for Full Post and to Leave a Comment...

This is what we all seem to want…..yet it remains elusive for many. What exactly is success anyway?

Fame, money, power over others- is this what success really is? One can argue there are certain elements of these factors in success. Did Hemingway have it right when he referred to the "bitch goddess of success." He probably had a valid point with that one too, since in order to achieve success, whatever it may be, there are definitely some sacrifices to be made to somebody or something, goddess or not…….

Success is by nature hard to define because it often refers to some external source of validation, that says, once and for all: "you've made it." If we judge ourselves solely by these external yardsticks, we are at the mercy of some very questionable powers, since who decides what those standards are??? It is certainly not you or me, since these are imposed by some culturally fluid standard. Also, what represented success twenty years ago does not necessarily represent success today.

It seems to me that it is high time to reconfigure and reflect upon what success really means for you and me- to find a formula that makes sense in these challenging times. When I think of success in a substantive way, I think of effectiveness and integrity-and not necessarily on a long term basis. Since things change these days on a moment to moment basis, I believe the definition of success should be keyed to moment to moment activity too. Also, it is hard enough to manage effectiveness and integrity on a short term basis, let alone for an extended period of time. I also think another element that should comprise this new definition of success would be "peace of mind." I know this term has been overused and probably over-hyped too, but I still believe authentic peace of mind is one of the best barometers of success there could be today- and not the least of which because it is so hard to achieve and then sustain. Easier to make millions and billions by any means- harder and harder to maintain peace of mind in the process.

I recently saw the movie "American Dreamz-" and thought it a brilliant treatment of the drive for success at any price that sometimes occurs in this country. The movie was an ingenious spoof of American Idol crossed with a sub-plot of possible terrorism- strangely enough it really worked. It was also a very good barometer of the cultural factors that drive people to do anything to succeed- Check it out and see.

What is your definition of success?
Click Here for Full Post and to Leave a Comment...

Please do not laugh before you read this post, and before you consider: is such a thing possible? If you would have asked me this five years ago, I probably would have said no. But in recent times, I not only think it is possible, but I think it is essential for all of us to strive to get there.

You may be skeptical about all this at first- and you might rattle off a list of seemingly intractable problems that are shoved in our faces everyday, things we are urged to take very seriously and care a lot about: global warming, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the so-called recession, earthquakes all over, an unfaithful spouse, a very sick friend, the fate of our children; any of which problems do not seem likely to be solved any time soon. That may be true……..on a certain level, but it doesn't need to affect you and your enjoyment of every precious moment you have.

One way to mitigate the onslaught of these oh so serious "problems" is to realize this: there has never been a time and place where the world was not threatened by one or more serious problems, and somehow, someway, the world and the people in it survived. For example, would you like to trade places with someone who got stuck in the way of the Nazi war machine? Or how about someone who found themselves on the receiving end of the Spanish Inquisition? Or how about the joy of being around during the Civil War in America when it seemed the whole world was going up in smoke? Do you begin to see the point?

Don't forget, too, that there has never been a time and place when every atrocity and tragedy was so instantly accessible, either on television or the internet. While the technology we have has certainly made some aspects of our life incredibly easy and freeing(the one I like best is doing business on my cell phone walking on a beautiful beach-nobody knows where I am), it has also placed us in the unenviable position of being always "on" and in receiving mode for information, some of which can be quite disturbing. The answer to this dilemna is to make the conscious and sometimes difficult decision to turn things off- so we can have time free from assaults of evey kind, at least electronic ones anyway.

When I think of the so-called problems that we face in this world, I now think of them as some kind of background noise. I am aware they are going on somewhere- I am not delusional- but I have placed them where they belong, in the recesses of my mind and not the forefront. What then is in the forefront of my mind? The only thing I have discovered that makes sense and ultimately brings happiness: focus on what is happening right in front of my face in the present moment. When I can do this, all the "problems" of this world fade away, as I make an effort to maximize what is available in my life right now.

I read this great Buddhist book called Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, in which the author Suzuki was talking metaphorically about having faith in the universe-using the example of someone riding through life on an elevated train track, urging the rider not to look down or worry about how it all works: "Let Buddha take care of the tracks."

Have a beautiful and peaceful day.
Click Here for Full Post and to Leave a Comment...

I have been thinking a lot about obligations these days- and I am talking about personal obligations. How much are we really obligated to another person? How much obligation is good for you or the other person? I think that there are several things that have triggered this.
The first thing has been that I have been doing a general housecleaning of my life. I mean this literally and metaphorically too. I spoke about this in another blog post called "cleaning house."

The second thing that prompted this post is a conversation I recently had with a total stranger at a restaurant bar while having lunch. This stranger, who later introduced herself to me, postulated that the criteria she uses to determine whether to continue any relationship is whether the relationship "pleasured" her. She was not talking about sexual pleasuring either, but pleasure in the emotional sense. You know what I mean- whether after hanging up a typical phone conversation with the other person, you felt good, or you felt like jumping off of your terrace. I have been thinking much about using this yardstick myself, because I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that emotional stress is potentially the most deadly kind, and is often administered best by those close to us; they are the ones with access. My lunch acquaintace may have an even better reason for doing this: if you accept the premise the universe does not want us to suffer unnecessarily, when we rid our lives of people not making us feel good, we are actually serving a divine purpose.

The third thing that has caused this examination into obligations is a study I read about on the internet. The study was one of personal happiness, and used various measures to determine what exactly makes our fellow human beings happy or not. It turns out the best predictor of whether any of us is happy is the happiness of our three closest friends. Not only that, but the health of our three closest friends also greatly determines the level of our own personal health. This really doesn't surprise me too much, because I believe we absorb the energy of those closest to us. The energy factor-once again- is controlling.

The fourth thing that has caused me to rethink obligations is the realization that much of our intervention in our people's lives, justified by our thinking it is an "obligation," is not just unnecessary but actually makes things worse . When intervention is done to stop someone else's pain, our efforts are often thwarted AND resented for a reason perhaps never contemplated: we are interfering in a life lesson the other is meant to experience-as painful as it can be to watch.

How do you see your personal obligations?
Click Here for Full Post and to Leave a Comment...